Posted
by
Soulskillon Thursday March 27, 2014 @05:19AM
from the good-news-for-everyone's-mothers dept.

New submitter DroidJason1 writes: "Microsoft has added new 'player reputation scores' to each Xbox Live member's Gamercard. The scores are represented by icons consisting of the colors green, yellow, and red. The more hours you play fairly online without being reported as abusive by other players, the better your reputation will be. Good players are given a green color, while those that 'need work' are yellow and those that need to be avoided are red. Microsoft says, 'If players do not heed warnings and continue to have a negative impact on other players and the Xbox Live community, they will begin to experience penalties. For example, people with an “Avoid Me” rating will have reduced matchmaking pairings and may be unable to use certain privileges such as Twitch broadcasting.' They add that the system will adjust for false reports."

They're not basing the reputation system on reports of cheating, though. As you pointed out, it's difficult, and hopelessly subjective, to tell the difference between a really good player and a cheater, so expert oversight is necessary to interpret those flags. (The good news is, automated analytics are getting remarkably good at telling the difference. It's an arms race, of course, but not as lopsided as it once was.) Rather, this system is for tagging griefers.

The system is not about cheating. The system is primarily about profanity and abuse.

They have been tinkering with it since it came out.

Also they haven't released what specific metrics they are using, but they have already mentioned factors: account playing statistics, complaints per hour played, positive feedback messages, friend requests, negative feedback messages, "Avoid This Player" marks, gamercard mutes, gamercard blocked communications, and filed complaints and reports. Couple all of them together and you will likely see some patterns quickly. They also mention that it will have human involvement and you will not be dinged for being skilled, nor will you be dinged for people targeting you. The last two seem to imply some human involvement.

My guess is that they start with simple statistical analysis to identify players trending downward with a steady stream of "block communications", "avoid this player", and "mute" flags. All of these are specifically mentioned on their site [xbox.com]. After algorithmic identification, I'm guessing one of their army of community managers (real live human beings who are employed to listen to the vitriol and enforce the rules) would probably get a notice to monitor the chat when the player starts play. If they hear a profanity stream click the check box marked "profanity". If they hear taunting, harassment, or other abuse, pick the check box that corresponds. With a real live human involved they can nicely handle people who were wrongly accused.

There was a story in a news a while back about an autistic kid who was banned because he "cheated" by loading his friend's save game to unlock stuff he couldn't access.

Doing so violates the xbox terms of service, what exactly is your beef?

His mother contacted Microsoft but they told her to fuck off and buy a new console.

You forgot to mention her also going to the press to try to make it sound like Microsoft was punishing her son for being too good... though in the end, Microsoft showed her evidence of his cheating and even later admitted knowing about it.